By Manja Nikolovska and Shane Johnson  

On 30 January 2020 the World Health Organisation declared the outbreak of Covid-19 a “Public Health Emergency of International concern” which posed an unprecedented threat. Chief police officers recognised that quick decisions needed to be taken, working with partners to ensure public safety and to help contain the spread of the virus. The National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) assumed the lead for the national policing response, using an enhanced cross portfolio command structure named Operation Talla. The work described in this report was commissioned by the NPCC and conducted by the Dawes Centre for Future Crime at UCL, in consultation with Op Talla, to understand the effects of the pandemic on the policing response and future impacts. Here, we report the findings of the (Delphi) study, the aims of which were to elicit expert opinion from a wide range of UK law enforcement agency stakeholders (LEAs) to understand their perspectives about the police response to the pandemic, how the pandemic affected policing, what worked well and should continue, how the pandemic affected crime, and how crime might change as a consequence of other future drivers of changes (e.g. climate change, Brexit and technological change). The key aims of the study were to: • Systematically assess learned experiences of policing during the disruption to inform future policy • Contribute towards LEAs readiness to police future disruptions and operate under “normal” conditions • Anticipate future crime trends • Inform policing strategy and policy The main report covers all of the themes…..

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  identified. Here, however, we discuss only those themes for which there was a clear consensus that motivated one or more recommendations.

London:  Dawes Centre for Future Crime at UCL , 2022. 76p.

By Cynthia Lum, Christopher Koper, et al.

The COVID-19 pandemic, beginning in early 2020 and continuing through 2022, has been one of the largest, if not most impactful public health crises in recent history. With over one million lives lost in the United States at the time of writing, the pandemic significantly impacted all aspects of social, economic, and civic life. Given this, the short and long-term impacts on criminal justice processes and institutions were significant. This report documents an in-depth case study of the impacts of the pandemic on a large, suburban police agency, the Fairfax County (Virginia) Police Department (FCPD) in Fairfax, Virginia. Near the nation’s capital, Fairfax County is home to a diverse and large populace, with a police department of approximately 1,400 sworn officers serving over 1.1 million people. The pandemic severely disrupted life in the county, as it did in many other jurisdictions across the United States. Faced with this unprecedented and fast-moving public health crisis, the police department had to adjust its policies, deployment, human resources strategy, and interactions with the community quickly. These changes focused on keeping the department’s workforce safe from COVID while simultaneously carrying out the agency’s mandate of maintaining public safety. Early in the pandemic, the Office of Justice Programs Bureau of Justice Assistance implemented its Coronavirus Emergency Supplemental Funding Program, which provided funds to eligible states, local government units, and tribes to strengthen the prevention, preparation, and response to COVID-19 and foreseeable related…..

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  problems in the future. 1 George Mason University’s Center for Evidence-Based Crime Policy (GMU-CEBCP) partnered with the FCPD to apply for this award as a sub-award recipient to study the impacts of the pandemic on the department. The study aimed to assess the pandemic's impacts on crimes, disorders, and other public safety concerns, police operations and deployment, community-police relationships, and other organizational impacts. The goal of this study was not only to document the impacts of COVID-19 on FCPD but to provide lessons learned and recommendations for other agencies and FCPD to strengthen their prevention, preparation, and response for future public health crises.   

Fairfax, VA:   Center for Evidence-Based Crime Policy, Department of Criminology, Law and Society, George Mason University , 2022. 206p.